Meet Demi Lovato, the New Queen of Twitter

HootSuite's Twitter Week in Review, Sept. 14-20

Our Twitter Week in Review chart uses data collected and parsed for Ad Age by the What the Trend (WTT) unit of HootSuite, the social-media management dashboard with more than four million users. (Last week's chart is right over here.) We're back today with Volume 25. Scroll down below the infographic for some context -- and watch for a fresh edition of our Twitter Week in Review each Friday.

As the second season of Fox's "X Factor" debuted last week to less-then-stellar ratings , all eyes were on its erratic new popstar-turned-judge Britney Spears, whose public appearances in recent years have been infrequent and notably awkward, if not completely disastrous. But this week, as the show's ratings improved and Britney proved to be positively boring, the singing competition show's other new judge, 19-year-old Demi Lovato, surfaced as a clear standout. Young, precocious and rounded out with a troubled back story of her own, Demi established a feisty rapport with fellow judge Simon Cowell that the show's editors clearly love. Combine that with the fact that she has a hit song in the form of "Give Your Heart A Break" -- and a built-in tween fan base thanks to her early years in the Disney stable -- and it's no wonder Demi is experiencing such a surge in popularity, on Twitter and on the radio. You can bet it isn't teen boys who drove "Awww Demi" to the top of the trends list this week, and for a young female star to leverage that wattage of girl power speaks volumes about her unique place in the hearts of a Twitterverse packed with Beliebers and One Directioners.

It's also been a big week for AT&T, as evidenced by its rare appearance as a brand on the top trends chart. Most of its buzz likely has to do with the release of Apple's new iPhone. Though the device is now also carried by Verizon and Sprint in the U.S., AT&T is still widely considered to be the phone's superior carrier for its ability to simultaneously process data and make voice calls, which other carriers don't support.
AT&T also may have won attention with its "It Can Wait" campaign against texting while driving, anchored by its "No Text On Board Pledge Day" on Wednesday.

The other brand on the top trends list this week, Internet Explorer, probably would rather have gone unmentioned: Microsoft earlier this week issued a security advisory and then a fix after the company found security vulnerabilities in its ubiquitous browser.

And finally, the only thing Twitterers like to talk about more than pop stars (except for dead pop stars) is , of course, Twitter itself. The platform's new profile page design, which crosses over to its mobile app, got its users talking, but because the change doesn't heavily affect the way people use the service, opinions were relatively mild compared to those regarding earlier redesigns.

For explanations of trends and memes not covered above, visit HootSuite's What the Trend.